If you’re antifa in Sweden, you’ve heard of Joel – the antifascist that defended a women’s march from knife-wielding white supremacists and served a serious prison sentence for his troubles. Joel’s been out for a while now and his support group just released this statement:

It’s been a little over 6 months since Joel got out and the fånggruppen that held in the campaign now want to thank you who supported us and Joel in these years.

We would like, first of all, to thank all of you who have in any way heard from us and contributed to practical or economic help, but also thank you to you who wrote to say that we are doing a good job. Thank you!
We should continue to thank you for the great support we have received from abroad; it has really meant a lot to us. It is good to know that there is great international solidarity and we hope that we, too, have shown that solidarity when you need it.

Of course, we want to thank the people and organizations in Sweden who supported Joel and us. We are eternally grateful!

We will now end the campaign and use the page to continue to work. Finally, a thank you from Joel himself:

“Many thanks to everyone who contributed to the free Joel campaign, everyone who wrote letters and sent in stuff. Thank you to all the groups who supported and spread the word, above all thanks to AFA Stockholm and an even bigger thank you to fånggruppen Stockholm.
A big thank you to my family! And thanks to those who set up for my family without you, it would have been hell. I love you.
Thank you also to all those who are fighting in the fight for a fairer world.

Don’t forget that it’s never possible to live on old merit, class is ongoing. Organize yourself!”

In Toronto at least, it’s abundantly clear that the police protect the nazis. This has been apparent at several heavily-policed events over the last two years there and is becoming so extreme that it’s hard to tell if the people harassing and assaulting antifa counter-protestors at rallies held by Islamophobes and bigots are the nazi rally participants or the kkkops in the Toronto Police Service.

Such was the case at the April 28th Pegida Canada rally at Toronto’s city hall. The two dozen or so usual suspects on the Islamophobe side were not just protected by the cops, but were also enabled by them. For example, when one of the bigots attacked an anti-fascist, knocking him to the ground and kicking him in the head, the po-po were quick to separate the sides and take the attacker to the sidelines for a smoke and a chat, but not to arrest him. But when the nazi assholes decided to attempt to hold an impromptu and unpermitted march through the downtown streets and antifa peaceful stood in front of their route to prevent that, the police waded in with pepper spray and billy clubs, assaulting the antifa counter-protesters so an illegal nazi march could proceed.

At least one anti-fascist, P., now faces absurd charges of assaulting a police officer and being “masked with intent.” P reached out to us to ask for some legal defence support and we decided without hesitation to offer our support to him. We wish him the best of luck beating these fabricated charges issued by the cops with the clear intention of deterring people from coming out to oppose Islamophobes and racists organizing to commit violence in their communities.

Loyal followers might recall that time back in 2016 when we helped pay for the legal defence of three Austin anti-fascists that had been arrested for the “crime” of removing racist graffiti from the University of Texas and making alt right creeps feel, well, unwelcome there. Our three friends were facing years in prison for doing the campus community a favor.

Here we are almost 18 months later and we were happy to receive the news that all three of them have had all their charges dropped. In the words of Red Guards Austin, “We want to especially thank those who donated to their legal funds. Without such generous donations, we would not have been able to afford their legal team. We can’t say enough how much countrywide and international solidarity means for the comrades here in Austin who face decades of prison time between them all. We will continue to fight, we will continue to win, and we will never apologize for our politics, nor will we dial them back in fear of repression.”

If you made a donation to the Defence Fund before 2017, some of your money helped get these charges dropped and our three friends go free, so pat yourself on the back today!

If you have never made a donation to the Defence Fund, or haven’t made one in a while, there’s no time like the present to do something concrete to support anti-fascists around the world by donating!

]]>theinternationalantifascistdefencefundfreefreefreeWe Said No.https://intlantifadefence.wordpress.com/2018/05/03/we-said-no/
Thu, 03 May 2018 01:16:44 +0000http://intlantifadefence.wordpress.com/?p=2233Continue reading We Said No.→]]>

Libera Community Space, Yogyakarta, Indonesia

This was a tough one for the Decisions Crew here at The International Anti-Fascist Defence Fund. The good people @ Yogyakarta, Indonesia’s Libera Community Space wrote to us looking for help to expand their space. We know they do excellent work, including anti-fascist work, so this led to a lively discussion and, in the end, to a close “no” vote to offering support.

So why would we help those two community spaces out by say no to Libera’s request? Ultimately it came down to the fact that Libera had not been harmed by fascists as a result of their antifa activities or support for antifa activities. This is The International Anti-Fascist Defence Fund, not the International Helping Develop Anarchist Community Spaces Fund (but we think someone should definitely start that up!) and we need to keep our powder dry so to speak in order to be able to offer substantial material support to anti-fascists and anti-racist precisely when they need us to have their backs – when they’re under attack or suffered some loss as a result of their antifa work.

We still think the Libera project is an excellent one and we would encourage anyone that wants to see autonomous community spaces take root in Indonesia to make a donation to them.

When a steaming pile of rotting shit like Charlie Kirk puts on a suit and goes to impose his bile on a group of people at a public event, you can be sure that fascist insects like the Traditional Workers Party will be attracted by his stench. Such was the case at Colorado State University on February 2nd, when they came armed with clubs, poles, and shields, shouting popular nazi slogans of today and yesterday like “Blood and soil” and “Jews will not replace us.” Hard to pretend to not be a nazi when your biggest fanboys are nazis, huh Charlie?

The good news is Colorado antifa were pretty successful escorting them off-campus. The bad news is one Colorado antifa got bonked on the head with flashlight and had to get stitched up in ER, which resulted in a clean bill of health and a $2400 medical bill.

We’re not about to let someone literally risk their life to defend their campus from an invasion of nazi edgelords without backing them up. So when a crowdfunder kicked off to help pay off the medical bill in question, we were more than happy to pitch in to help pay that off. As of this writing, they’re $300 away from making it just a bad memory, so you should feel free to kick in, too. If you want to make sure that any anti-fascist anywhere in a similar situation is supported, you should really kick in to The International Anti-Fascist Defence Fund!

]]>https://intlantifadefence.wordpress.com/2018/04/20/like-flies-on-shit/feed/1theinternationalantifascistdefencefund406ff9be-0a60-45ae-b5c8-139d71bcc59d_profileThe Cost Of Standing Up Against Islamophobiahttps://intlantifadefence.wordpress.com/2018/04/18/the-cost-of-standing-up-against-islamophobia/
https://intlantifadefence.wordpress.com/2018/04/18/the-cost-of-standing-up-against-islamophobia/#commentsWed, 18 Apr 2018 13:56:17 +0000http://intlantifadefence.wordpress.com/?p=2227Continue reading The Cost Of Standing Up Against Islamophobia→]]>

Seattle defends itself against Islamophobia: June 10, 2017

When America’s largest Islamophobic group comes to your town, what do you do? If you’re the good people of Seattle, you confront them. Unfortunately, you’ll find that no matter how much cooperation or communication you have with the police to explain your peaceful intentions in doing so, the Seattle Police Department will still let a dozen or so of the most virulent Islamophobes rush your crowd to assault people. Several times, even.

Seeing that the police were literally allowing members of various hate groups (Proud Boys, Patriot Prayer, etc.) rush in and assault people with impunity, some people were forced to defend themselves. That, of course, is when the SPD decided to aggressively step in. Not to stop the attackers, mind you – but to beat & arrest the people trying to defend themselves & others!

All in all, we think any reasonable person would agree the thousands of dollars it took to accomplish all of that in the last three months was money well-spent. But it’s also money that comes solely from donations from people like you. And we’d like to make you an offer:

Sign up to make a recurring monthly donation of at least $5USD via our paypal or Patreon accounts and these stickers are as good as yours!

]]>theinternationalantifascistdefencefundGays-Against-Sharia-protest-5tumblr_inline_p69dtlnF9C1rsr8v6_540.jpgAntifa Solidarity On Both Sides Of The Channel!https://intlantifadefence.wordpress.com/2018/03/20/antifa-solidarity-on-both-sides-of-the-channel/
Tue, 20 Mar 2018 09:30:42 +0000http://intlantifadefence.wordpress.com/?p=2221Continue reading Antifa Solidarity On Both Sides Of The Channel!→]]>

Bristol Antifascists.

Last week we handled two requests for help from either side of the Channel! Over in the UK, an antifascist in Bristol was dealing with legal costs related to their arrest after protesting an Islamophobe hate rally last fall. If there were true justice, our Bristol pal would have been lavishly awarded for standing up to hate in their community, but no such luck. So we were happy to do what we could do to help them pay off the financial costs of putting themselves on the line like that.

Meanwhile on the other side of the Channel, two Parisian antifa are facing serious charges after they allegedly attacked a neo-nazi implicated in the murder of Clément Meric. It’s interesting how white supremacists can stab people to death with total impunity and face no repercussions from the state but when they turn around and fabricate utter nonsense about being set upon by “vengeful antifa,” the full force of the law comes down on whichever antifa the fash point the finger at. And by “interesting” we mean “fucking disgusting.”

Anywho, we stand with our Parisian friends and will do whatever we can do to ensure they are well-equipped to defend themselves – in the courts or in the streets!

As the old saying goes, “cops and the Klan go hand-in-hand.” The longstanding and cosy relationship between police forces and white supremacist gangs has been well-documented. So it should surprise no one that when bigoted troll Mike Cernovich held a publicity stunt in NYC, the cops were there to fuck with protestors.

And fuck with protestors they did! One of our friends, J, stood up to defend his community against the genocidal scum that crawled out from under their rocks for this event, only to wind up with a broken leg and a list of fabricated charges against him, all courtesy of the NYPD. This has left J with a looming mountain of medical & legal bills all while his broken leg prevents him from paying his usual bills by working his regular job.

J’s friends reached out to us for some help paying his rent and keeping food on his table while he recovers from his injuries and we were happy to oblige. The International Anti-Fascist Defence Fund was established to help out antifa and anti–racists when they run into trouble because they took a stand against hate and this was a textbook example of why we do what we do.

The only reason we were there for J was because of the generous donations from people just like you. The Defence Fund is 100% funded by donations, so if you want us to keep doing what we do, please make a donation to the Defence Fund today!

We know this all of this thanks to Yvette Felarca. When Yvette became one of the anti-fascists charged by the cops, she came to us to request help paying for her legal defence and of course we obliged. As a result, Felarca’s lawyers have mounted a fierce defence which included obtaining & revealing the documents detailing the extent of police involvement with the fascist terrorists in their attempt to hammer the anti-fascists as described above.

Thanks to Yvette and her legal team, the details of the disgusting level of collusion between the cops and the armed racist extremists that tried to kill at least eight people that day have now come to light, a service to anti-fascists everywhere. Without the generosity of donors to The International Anti-Fascist Defence Fund, Yvette’s legal team would have lacked the resources needed to expose the full extent to which the cops were in bed with the neo-nazis.